Description of the attraction
The Vitebsk temple in honor of the Assumption of the Most Holy Theotokos was built on the site of a wooden prayer house of the Old Believers in 1852. The new temple was built to glory - a spacious white-stone rectangular with a rounded altar wall and a tall slender bell tower. This did not like the local Orthodox clergy, which in the middle of the 19th century in Vitebsk was supported by the secular authorities.
In the middle of the 19th century, the Old Believers in Vitebsk were a closed, wealthy community. Fleeing from the persecutions of the Nikonian Church, after the entry of Vitebsk into the Russian Empire, Old Believer communities moved here.
The official reason for the confiscation of the temple in favor of the Orthodox Church was the participation of Old Believers in anti-government riots. On October 19, the church was again consecrated by Archbishop Vasily (Luzhin) of Polotsk and Vitebsk, who advocated strengthening Orthodoxy on the territory of the former Polish lands.
After the revolution, the bell tower of the temple was destroyed. In Soviet times, the Assumption Church, like the rest of the churches in Vitebsk, was closed. In 1954, it was decided to transfer the abandoned dilapidated building for the needs of the Pedagogical Institute.
In 1997, the building was transferred to the Orthodox Church. Reconstruction completed. The bell tower was rebuilt and the dome was installed. Orthodox shrines were brought to the church: St. Theophan the Recluse, right. John the Russian, Vmts. Barbarians, mch. Mamanta, svsch. mch. Vladimir. Currently, a Sunday school and an Orthodox sisterhood operate in the Assumption Church of Vitebsk.
